JANUARY 15, 1943

WASHINGTON, Thursday—I must say I was fairly sleepy after the day spent in Arthurdale, West
Virginia, for we finally returned to Washington in the early hours of Wednesday morning.
A good sleep, even if it is short, will do a great deal, and so breakfast found me
much interested in an opportunity to talk for a little while with Miss Charlotte Carr.

I had come up to New York City yesterday to speak at Columbia University at their
Institute of Arts and Sciences. Today I am going to New Jersey, where Mrs. Lewis Thompson
is meeting me and taking me to the Marlboro Hospital, and then to Fort Monmouth to
lunch at the USO Club and to the Monmouth County Social Service annual meeting.

I shall dine informally tonight with Mr. and Mrs. Louis Payne, in the interests of
the Young Men's Vocational Foundation of New York. Though there are very few boys who need help now, the problem of the girls coming out of reformatories is becoming
a serious one, which this group thinks should not be entirely abandoned at the present
time.

It is interesting to me how many people are suddenly awakening to the importance of
women's education from a variety of angles. In the course of the last few days, I
have received a most abaorbing account of Gould Academy in Bethel, Maine. Here they
are specializing in teaching girls the art of home making in a very practical way.

The letter which accompanies the account of their work, stresses the fact that they
are not only teaching them how to cook, to clean, to budget their money and to buy
the necessary things; but they include all the interests of homemaking—clothing, the
care of children and the necessary community activities which make the homemaker a real factor in her community.

They encourage their girls to enter all the war activities of their community—first
aid, canteen work, nursing and the various drives to collect aluminum, waste paper,
tin and other materials. In the letter giving the account of what they are doing there
is a sentence all of us should remember, no matter what other occupation we have in
life. It is: "Being an efficient, alert home maker these days is a man-sized job and...includes more than a casual observer might think."

I also have a most interesting letter emphasizing the reason why girls who are able
to go to college, should go in greater numbers than ever before to receive an education
which will make them valuable to their country in many ways.